In the ROTJ novelization (I believe, although this could be from somewhere else), Yoda is the one that makes it possible for Anakin to become a ghost at the end and see his son. I don't believe this was done due to Anakin being redeemed, but was done for Luke. Luke deserved to see his father as a Jedi. And then Anakin can drift back into the madenning abyss that all Sith are destined for.

I dont think retaining your identity can be classified as a redemption from hell. The only real purpose to retaining your identity after death is to help the living.

Lucas said that Anakin can never redeem himself for all the crimes he's committed. He can never right the wrongs. But he can stop being evil. He can stop the horror. He can take the last bit of goodness and destroy the Dark Lord, which takes his life as well. In the end, he does a final act of good which redeems him in a sense. He becomes a good man again and dies. As I've said, redemption has many definitions. One is to come back from a state of decline. Another is return to one's good favor. Meaning that if someone sees you a certain way, then you should meet those expectations. In the end, that's what happens. Anakin proves Luke is right, by becoming a good man again and saving his son. He does the impossible by the Jedi and Sith standards, which allows Yoda and Obi-wan to help him to retain his identity. Anakin is redeemed by his children. They bring out the best in him.

Agreed. Redemption does not mean that one is absolved of his crimes. Anakin paid for mistakes with his life. Redemption means that one can earn the forgiveness of those he loves through compassion and selflessness. Anakin acted out of compassion for his son, and therefore was redeemed. Does that mean his crimes were nothing? Absolutely not. What Anakin's actions did mean, however, was that he learned from his mistakes and sought to put a stop to the acts of evil that he had participated in up to that point.

I don't mean to sound condescending here, but I think it's worth reiterating something that Lucas has said over and over again: Anakin was redeemed in ROTJ. He was the Chosen One. If people have a problem accepting that, then don't watch the film.

I think this scene in particular is one of the few criticisms of ROTS that I have. Anakin has a short amount of time to kill all of the Jedi in the Temple, rend the Order to shreds and take down the CIS. So logically instead of being shown killing Jedi in a good siege like what Yoda and Obi-Wan were shown doing as they attacked the remaining Temple beseigers, he takes a break to kill the Younglings? Yup, because that's a task that only a Dark Lord of the Sith can undertake. This wasn't David vs. Goliath, this was Ant Colony vs. Human-with-unusually-large-boot. He was one of the best Jedi to ever serve in the order and here he is doing something that a normal footsoldier would have had equal difficulty doing.

Cin Drallig? Threatless. Jedi Knights? Pennies in a bucket. Younglings? Most fearsome foes this side of the Galaxy! No fights showing his growing Force adeptness, no saber combat, no commanding scenes of him ordering around the Clones. No, this was all replaced by a paltry attempt to make Vader intensely evil in the span of ten seconds. And then Lucas makes comments about how the Star Wars films are meant for children? This being the same film where people are decapitated, young Padawans are shot to death and a man chokes his pregnant wife unconcious over a stupid one-sided rivalry with his mentor (thus rendering the majority of the plot redundant and useless)?

Come on; Lucas could have portrayed this scene with just as much power as the others using the Troopers, and showing Vader wasting his time killing unarmed young Force sensitive children depleted whatever sympathetic feelings I had. It's not like his plot development would have been grievously hindered had he not done it. I personally laughed my butt off when I saw him burn to a crisp. I think Lucas wanted me to feel sorry, but by this time he already Force Choked Padme and my patience with his stupidity had grown thin. Thumbs way down on the execution and relevancy of this scene.

I think this scene in particular is one of the few criticisms of ROTS that I have. Anakin has a short amount of time to kill all of the Jedi in the Temple, rend the Order to shreds and take down the CIS. So logically instead of being shown killing Jedi in a good siege like what Yoda and Obi-Wan were shown doing as they attacked the remaining Temple beseigers, he takes a break to kill the Younglings? Yup, because that's a task that only a Dark Lord of the Sith can undertake. This wasn't David vs. Goliath, this was Ant Colony vs. Human-with-unusually-large-boot. He was one of the best Jedi to ever serve in the order and here he is doing something that a normal footsoldier would have had equal difficulty doing.

Cin Drallig? Threatless. Jedi Knights? Pennies in a bucket. Younglings? Most fearsome foes this side of the Galaxy! No fights showing his growing Force adeptness, no saber combat, no commanding scenes of him ordering around the Clones. No, this was all replaced by a paltry attempt to make Vader intensely evil in the span of ten seconds. And then Lucas makes comments about how the Star Wars films are meant for children? This being the same film where people are decapitated, young Padawans are shot to death and a man chokes his pregnant wife unconcious over a stupid one-sided rivalry with his mentor (thus rendering the majority of the plot redundant and useless)?

Come on; Lucas could have portrayed this scene with just as much power as the others using the Troopers, and showing Vader wasting his time killing unarmed young Force sensitive children depleted whatever sympathetic feelings I had. It's not like his plot development would have been grievously hindered had he not done it. I personally laughed my butt off when I saw him burn to a crisp. I think Lucas wanted me to feel sorry, but by this time he already Force Choked Padme and my patience with his stupidity had grown thin. Thumbs way down on the execution and relevancy of this scene.

^ I completley agree man. Anakin could of oredered a few clones to take out the kids but he personally goes and does it himself. Its almost like we get nothing Vader killing adults, but we are suppose to feel sorry for him killing kids that could of been killed by his clones? Its almost like Anakin got his ass beat by jedi downstiars, and then came up to make up for it by kill Younglings.

I pretty sure he killed the jedi babies [they had to have been in the temple]. I mean the general movegoers didn't feel sorry for him, they felt like "Ya, Obi-wan just kicked that nuts ass!".

Lucas didn't want to show Anakin's skills. He wanted to show how damn evil Darth Vader was. How far he was willing to go to protect his loved ones. We're not supposed to be cheering Vader on. We're supposed to be condeming him, just as we were originally supposed to in 1977.

But that's not the point I wanted to make. The scene diminished his persona by making it seem that he had somehow advanced into the Dark Side irrevocably by killing the Younglings, when in fact he had been lured in way in advance. That was 10 seconds that could have been better allocated showing a clearer shot of his fight with Cin Drallig or a miscellaneous group of Jedi. Whereas Obi-Wan proved his purpose as a good duelist by making spicy cajun stew out of Grievous with his own weapon, Anakin is shown killing random children to save his wife and his own unborn children...wait...I'm sorry. I was talking about what made him important enough for the film to revolve around. That's a REALLY bad example. So Lucas tried to show him being evil? Remind me how choking your spouse to death after spending hours fighting against Jedi and Neimodians alike for her well-being doesn't do this already? And then we have the Anakin/Obi-Wan duel itself. Obi-Wan has a kill from Grievous under his belt, and what does Anakin have for his track record? A short scene where he seemingly avoids fighting most of the Jedi and kills defenseless children in order to save his own children. Because that makes sense. I don't know, I just feel that the movie showed how evil he was. The scene was, as I stated before, unnecessary to the rise of Vader.

Anakin gains in strength by using the Dark Side. The more he embraces the Dark Side, the more he uses his anger and hate, the stronger he can become through it. It isn't about showing an impressive display of Force skills. It's about giving in to your negative emotions and using them to fuel said emotions, thus increasing their connection to the Force. Which in turn makes it easier for Anakin to keep using the Dark Side to keep that power and increase it. It's like a drug. You take it the first time and you get a 'good rush'. Well, you want to keep having that same euphoric (sp) feeling. So how do you keep that momentum going? You keep doing it over and over until you quit or are six feet under. Anakin has to keep killing in cold blood, using his anger and hate to become more powerful. When he kills the Jedi, he is only halfway there. Once he reaches Mustafar, he unleashes all that pent-up on the Separatist Council. He's so into the Dark Side that his eyes change color. The hate is just bursting at the seams.

The whole point is to show how evil he is. It's a lesson to us. We must not give into our own dark side, or else we will be lost like Anakin is. Wars do not make one great. Not for Yoda. Not for Obi-wan. Not for Luke. Not for Palpatine. And most certainly not for Vader.

Children, as mentioned, are considered innocent in the eyes of many. Lucas wanted to show the death of innocence and Vader walking into the Council chambers to slaughter a group of Younglings was the ultimate death knell. "Anakin's Betrayal" and the opening moments of "Anakin's Dark Deeds" from the score highlight this. Especially with the latter which begins with the choir singing in a low, sad tone. Designed to be haunting and disturbing, compared to the slaughter and the birth of the Empire segments.

ROTS is the fall of Anakin from grace. From good to evil. The revenge is from Darth Sidious who is leading the Sith into a new age.

But that's not the point I wanted to make. The scene diminished his persona by making it seem that he had somehow advanced into the Dark Side irrevocably by killing the Younglings, when in fact he had been lured in way in advance. That was 10 seconds that could have been better allocated showing a clearer shot of his fight with Cin Drallig or a miscellaneous group of Jedi.

it's more of a cinematic device: he kills his own innocence and his inner kid type of thing.

This scene is so pivotal to where the whole story behind ROTC falls apart. It just isn't believable. Now you can say whay you will about the influence of the dark side of the force and how it could twist someone who was otherwise good into someone who was mostly evil (can't be pure evil because as we all know, "There is still good in him...."). I think what I struggled with when watching this film was that the whole transformation from Anakin to Vader took all of about an hour. One hour he's going to turn in Palpatine to the Jedi council, the next he's slaughtering younglings. It just didn't jive. GL worked very hard to lay out exactly why he had to do this. <Saving Padme's life> requires <Strength in the Dark Side> therefore <kill lots of Jedi>. It just isn't believable. It would have made more sense to me if Palpatine had started him off slowly. Killing a few Jedi here, a few Jedi there. Maybe over the space of a couple of months. Something like a slow slide into madness instead of a sudden reversal. Then as the Dark Side truly takes over, then start slaughtering children. Of course, GL has set in his mind that the events of Vader's transformation from Anakin to suited Vader take all of about 48 hours. Why? Why couldn't it have been stretched out? Why does this disappoint me? Because I am a huge fan of character development and plot. Here, there was almost none. Anakin did not become Vader. Anakin disappeared and Vader took his place. Certainly fits in with Obi-wan's lie to Like in ANH. Still, it doesn't make any sense. Where did this evil Vader come from? Why does he have remorse about helping to kill Mace, but an hour later, is slaughtering children? Where is the CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT? Where are the incremental steps along the way?

If the scene could have been improved, he could have had Vader show even a hint of trepidation. Maybe something to demonstrate how there is "still good in him," right before the Dark Side reasserts itself. In other words, SHOW the transformation.

Ok, rant over. Flame away.

-LegoDroid

Falling to the DS does not have to be a subtle fall and suddenly killing children is not OOC for Vader at that stage. AOTC clones perfectly illustrates this, Anakin is not the sort of person to just summarily kill women and children, but he is so enraged by the death of his mother that his anger makes him touch the DS and it leads him into killing the tuskens and that was just a fluke sojourn into the dark where he just barely touches it. During the raid on the Jedi temple he is actively and conciously using the dark side. Remember this is the real (Lucas) version of the DS and not this crappy EU theory where its just a mental decline.

Because Lucas said that the one thing he wanted to complete about the saga was how the powerful man in black was really in a "pathetic" fallen state of his true self the entire time by showing us that he does have good in him. Killing children to justify saving his future family doesn't show this, wastes time better spent showing something else, and depletes my patience for an overdeveloped character.

It works. He was so desperate to save his family from certain death, that he contributes to the destruction of his family. He's pathetic because all he had to do is listen to Yoda and not do a damn thing, other than train himself to let go of your fears. He had everything. A wife. Two children on the way. He was a Jedi Knight and got to sit on the Council. He was a very publically well known hero. He had it all and he threw it away, because he got too greedy. Now his wife is dead. His children are in hiding. He has killed almost all the Jedi. And now he's trapped, both figuratively and literally. He is trapped in this suit, with his limbs gone and his body burnt. His power is diminished and he is loyal to a man that he hates with a passion.

>>>> Because Lucas said that the one thing he wanted to complete about the saga was how the powerful man in black was really in a "pathetic" fallen state of his true self the entire time by showing us that he does have good in him. Killing children to justify saving his future family doesn't show this, wastes time better spent showing something else, and depletes my patience for an overdeveloped character.

You see, I disagree that he wanted us to feel sorry for Anakin in ROTS. The fact that he changed the immolation scene so that Anakin does not call out for help to Obi-Wan, is a big reason behind my thinking here. Lucas is quoted in The Making of Revenge of the Sith as saying that he didn't want Anakin to be redeemable at that point in the Saga.

So whilst it may well have been there in the story originally, I don't think that it is there now.

What I think George wants to show us with Anakin, is just how easy it is to do the wrong thing when we are presented with difficult choices in life. That it is harder to do the right thing. That once you take that first small step towards greed and evil, the subsequent steps become easier, and easier.

For me, the scene with the younglings is so powerful because it shows us just how far Anakin has fallen, from the innocent boy that we first met on Tatooine in TPM.

I really love the symbolism that George puts into this scene for two reasons.

Firstly, it takes place in the Council Chamber, where Anakin was first introduced to the rest of his new Jedi 'family'. This was the place where an emboldened Qui-Gon stood with the young Anakin and told the Council:

is the Chosen One. You must see it."

-- Qui-Gon Jinn, The Phantom Menace, 1999/>

And now, this is the place where Anakin truly turns his back on that mantle.

But most symbolically, the youngling who steps forward to ask Anakin what they must do, looks SO strikingly similar to the young Anakin we saw in TPM.

When Anakin ignites that Saber in response to that innocent little boy, he is about to attack everything that he ever stood for, and everything that he ever could have been.

i think it was necessary to show him kill some kids, it only took the film to the next level for us viewing it.

Often it is much more effective NOT to show something. Leaving it to the imagination makes it much more powerful (given you have an imagination). Would you really have wanted to see Anakin fighting...slaughtering...the younglings? Picture it in your mind. Does it seem dramatic? I'm not sure how it could have been pulled off so that it's as effective as it already is, considering we're still talking about how shocked people were by the implication. I think a room full of kids running around getting chopped by Anakin might have looked unintentionally humorous. (Perhaps I think it would have been funny because I'm a teacher? )

The movie would've been given an NC-17 had Lucas opted to show the Younglings being sliced up by Vader. That's why we get blaster shots, which have no blood. And we get the implication of Vader killing them. Thus Lucas walks away with a mere PG-13.

well i am not saying that he needed to show us anakin really killing the kids but simply what we saw was fine enough. but i think though it would of been a nice touch though to show anakin killing older jedi and even masters if they were any on coruscant still. it would of show how powerful his anger had made him become, and give meaning to when sidous say "I can feel your anger it makes you strong gives you focus"it would of show how powerful his anger had made him become, and give meaning to when sidous say "I can feel your anger it makes you strong gives you focus"

That's what happens when a Jedi turns to the Dark Side. Using their anger and hate makes them strong and gives them focus. Vader has anger and hate, which he uses in the Temple. And then he really kicks it up a notch on Mustafar.

When I took my wife to see the movie, afterwards she said she hated this movie so bad she would never watch it again. Why? "Because it was soooo violent and he killed little children!"

I tried to reason with her about the violence part. I asked her to expalin how it was she though this PG13 movie was so much more violent than a movie she loved, Gladiator that was rated R.

Simple, she siad "because they didn't kill little kids"

So even though it was not shown it was the idea that made it much worse than that of the bloody, loss of limbs scenes that were shown in the other movie.

Go figure.

Your wife must've missed the part in Gladiator where the little boy was dead and hanging from a tree.

In relation to the topic:

I don't know why people get so up in arms about this either. He was given a job to do: Exterminate the Jedi. Discerning between them was not an option. Age didn't matter. Those little kids would eventually grow up to challenge the rule of the Emperor, so it was a necessary evil.

And, as has been said, murder is murder. Age is irrelevant. It is a despicable atrocity no matter how old the victim is.

Also, as George Carlin says, "There are no innocent victims. If you're born into this world, you're guilty. End of story, next case. Next. ****ing. Case."

A good man would have shown remorse ,more inner conflict,would not have been capable of killing unarmed kids so easily,especialy when they think you are coming to halp them.I can only see someone who is very weak and prob not to intelligent do that at that moment.an evil hero would prob have given these kids the chance to grow up and face him when they were ready,he would kill them later,cause they were not a threat to the empire,not now and not in the future,only luke was cause he could bring that one light element that was still in him to the surface and thus make him in a way one with the force for that single element.

well i saw it a couple times and I didn't see the confliction.I saw a man full of hate consumed by the darkside and power.He looks like one of those sinister nazi agents preparing for a massacre.He is merely an instrument of sidious.WHy did he accept to kill the younglings when his wife was in danger? why did he not stood up to sidious ,at that moment he was still more powerful with the force.He should have went looking for her in stead of killing younglings.When he kneels before sidious ,5 minutes before he felt remorse,but at the same time he accepts to kill young kids.that'spremedidated murder,he decided rationaly.He did not listen to his midichloreans like quigon advised to him.

anyway, the conflict is symbolized by his tears. watch it again and you will see them in that scene and on mustafar.

sinister nazi agents are usually very enthusiastic about their assignments. anakin is not. he has to put on a show, too, for sidious because he cannot appear doubting what he is told to do. i don't think sid would accept him questioning his assignemnts.

and finally, i know this is getting old, but vader is conflicted throughout the OT, he has to be, otherwise there'd be no reason for him to turn back.

He is merely an instrument of sidious.

exactly. he makes himself an instrument until he becomes an instrument. it's genius (on sid's side). he will give him a role and he tries it on for size until he fits into it and not the other way around.

He had the time throughout the movie. He has time to knows he feels lost, that he will do anything to "save" his wife. All through ROTS, Anakin gets information, from both the Jedi and Sith, from Obi-wan and Padme. He mulls over this info, esp. in the Opera scene. After Mace is killed, Anakin makes a quick descision using all this information.
And conflicted or not, he chose to go forward to attain his goal, power to prevent death.
Can anyone more well-versed in this relate what the resp. of a soldier is when given an unlawful order?